


the dreams of distant lives

by pieandsouffle



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: (i do), Angst, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Modern AU, Nicceeeee, also Gilbert and Phil being friends cause i love them, cheesy disgusting sappiness, deleted scenes now being uploaded!, dubious characterisation, my characterisation is a mess but i dont care, the modern 'anne of the island' au we need
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2018-12-07 16:09:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11627088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pieandsouffle/pseuds/pieandsouffle
Summary: Anne Shirley-Cuthbert comes back from Echo Lodge refreshed and finally ready to confront her feelings for her best friend. Life, on the other hand, has different plans for her.





	1. the dreams of distant lives

**Author's Note:**

> okay, I watched like... one episode of Anne With An E, which naturally devolved into me watching them all, reading all the books, watching Green Gables Fables and crying like... forever. this is mainly to make my emotions do something constructive (read: control my hysterical key-smashing) instead of just continually weeping about beautiful characters
> 
> (warning for probably weird characterisation cause who am i kidding, am i writing book the book characters? the show characters? video blog characters? i don't know!!!! i think they just ended up being mish-mashes of various character traits masquerading as people)
> 
> title is from Radical Face, because that dude's music is exactly the kind of angsty, tragic, poetical stuff Anne would delight in
> 
> also this has not been betaed so like... if there are chunks missing and appalling grammar please don't judge me too harshly, i'm just a humble sleep-deprived university student

The small, stony bridge stretching over a greyish, rocky stream symbolised not only the mere crossing of a river, but the celebrated return to a land where mobile phone service existed: namely, Avonlea.

 

Anne normally would have celebrated this momentous occasion with a status update declaring satellites a gift from God and grieving over the internet-free existence she had been forced to live for the past three weeks, but she refrained from doing so. Mostly because those torturous three weeks at Echo Lodge had been spent with people she enjoyed spending time with, and partly because shortly after arrival her phone charger had decided that it was finished with life and leapt from her bag into a puddle. There was, as well as all that, the small issue being that she could not be bothered to pull over and type out the status anyway. So she instead one-handedly scrabbled for her second home-burned CD of alt-indie music in the passenger seat, stuffed it into her car’s protesting player and jammed out to the sounds of poor-quality, alternative tragedy. She could feel Marilla’s wry disapproval from kilometres away.

 

“It’s poetic,” Anne had insisted when Marilla had grimaced at first hearing the music. “It’s about a boy getting over the death of his twin.”

 

“Is it? Then why are you doing sit-ups to it?”

 

“I don’t have a prepared answer to that question,” Anne had replied seriously to a bemused raise of Marilla’s eyebrow, punctuating the statement with two or three sit-ups.

 

“Why do I even ask in the first place?” Marilla had said in her weariest and fondest way, and set the slice of cake she’d brought in on the dresser. Anne managed to do three more before she gave in.

 

Returning to the current day, the weather was so bad in Avonlea that Anne wasn’t even slightly surprised that she encountered only one other vehicle on the road, and no pedestrians besides. Her windscreen wipers were moving so fast to clean off the near-solid sheet of rain pouring down that she was just waiting for one of them to give up entirely and fling itself from the car.

 

The long, stony driveway to Green Gables took her much longer than normal to traverse. She squinted through the waterfall outside and slowed the car to a crawl. That was so even if she _did_ hit Jerry, it probably wouldn’t hurt him all that much.

 

Jerry had apparently decided it was too awful to do any work today, and she didn’t see him the whole drive, which wasn’t much evidence of anything. But to her surprise, as she parked as close to the porch as she could manage without actually hitting it, Matthew’s old, battered little car was gone, and the kitchen light was out. Both Rachel _and_ Marilla must be out! And it went without saying that Davy and Dora wouldn’t be home either, Marilla wasn’t fool enough to let Davy have the place to himself. As she opened the door a crack, she wondered whether she should get her case out of the trunk, or wait for it to stop raining. It didn’t take her long to make the decision, and was soon fumbling for her keys as she struggled, blind from the rain, to the front door.

 

The ever-thrifty Marilla always turned the heating off when she left the house, and so Anne was relieved to find she couldn’t have left very long ago. Warmth permeated through her soaked jacket, and she sighed as she stripped it off and hooked it to the hat-stand.

 

“Hell- _o_ Green Gables! It’s good to be back!” she announced to the empty house.

 

She took the stairs three at a time, waltzed into her room and snatched her laptop from her desk and plonked herself down onto the bed, computer propped up against her chest. Marilla had been so thoughtful as to put it on the charger that morning, and Anne was welcomed by the friendly start-up tune and a completely full battery.

 

The first arduous task on her to-do list was to empty her case of her Echo Lodge supplies, but she didn’t hate herself enough at that moment. Her second task was to sift through her emails, but she decided that it could wait. She hadn’t spoken to anyone but Charlotta and Miss Lavendar in weeks! She was itching to talk to Diana, or Phil, or Gilbert, for that matter. She hadn’t heard from Gilbert in months; he was in Bolivia doing some hands-on medical experience in a small village. And, if she was correct, he was due to come back at any moment …

 

There were a ridiculous number of message sent to her on Facebook. She groaned inwardly — so many to answer! So many conversations to catch up on, inside jokes missed! — before her heart gave a delighted little leap in her chest at the sight of Gilbert’s stupid messenger nickname at the top of the list. And so recent, too! The last dated only the day before yesterday!

 

 **_gilly boy:_ ** _hey Anne, i’m getting back from bolivia tomorrow and i was wondering if you were in avonlea atm? i thought it’d be cool to catch up_

 

 _also did you know bolivia has the cutest mice ever Confirmed_ _™_

Following was a blurry photo of the professed ‘cutest mouse ever’ beside, for some reason, an empty shoe with tied laces. It was very cute, but Anne somehow doubted Gilbert actually agreed: Gilbert leaping onto his desk with an undignified squeak when a rat skittered across the Avonlea school floor was altogether too fresh a memory … As was his turning pale when dissecting them in biology at Queens.

 

 **_gilly boy:_ ** _ANNE I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING I SWEAR I DIDN’T SCREAM_

_okay maybe a little_

_it took me by surprise a bit_

_but … it was a really manly scream. very masculine. like the verbal equivalent of captain america ripping a log in half. forceful removal of my adenoids. i still cant feel my tonsils_

_anyway, if you want to have lunch or something when i get back thatd be cool! hit me up with a time or day or food (if you decide you want quinoa ill never speak to you again … I AHVENT EATEN ANYTHING BUT QUINOA FOR THREE MONTHS!!!! I CANT REMEMBER WHAT UNHEALTHY FOOD TASTES LIKE!!)_

 

_anyway._

_i missed you._

 

Anne’s grin split her face and she read on, feeling vaguely as if she was floating. It was silly to entertain the notion that Gilbert may have been asking her out on a date, especially with how poorly she reacted the first time he did, but she could hope, couldn’t she? In all likelihood he did just want to catch up, but still …

 

The last message was from the day before yesterday.

 

 **_gilly boy:_ ** _i heard from a little bird called marilla that you broke your phone charger so you probably wont get this until you get back and find your laptop but anyway. i think i picked something up in bolivia cause i feel terrible, so raincheck on the totally-already-planned catch-up thing that you like … dont know about. cause your phones dead. so disorganized. ill probably be alright by the time you get back so no worries. yeah youll hear from me the sec i hear you’re back honestly_

 

She smiled and rested her chin on the edge of her laptop.

 

 **_carrots:_ ** _sadly I can’t reply until i find my laptop or charge my phone. stay tuned_

_but seriously, I’d love to catch up!! tell me when you’re feeling better and we can organize something!_

_and sure, I believe in you and your manly screams. you absolutely didn’t throw your shoe at The Cutest Mouse Ever_

 

And finally, before she lost her nerve:

 

_and I missed you too._

 

* * *

 

 

Anne spent most of the afternoon half-asleep, dozing as the rain rattled the gutters of Green Gables. Her laptop had fallen from her chest to a precarious position on the edge of the bed, still open and awaiting a reply from Gilbert.

 

No reply came, and no obnoxious ding interrupted her sleep, but as early evening faded away into night, the unmistakeable sound of the parlour door closing woke her.

 

“Marilla?” Anne croaked. She cleared her throat, wiped a hand across her eyes, and tried again. “Marilla! Is that you?”

 

“Anne?”

 

“Marilla!” Suddenly wide-awake, Anne leapt out of bed and rushed downstairs. Marilla was attempting to extract Davy from his wet coat, but Davy was clearly too busy trying to struggle away to reach Anne.

 

Rachel Lynde collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table and peered at Anne, smiling. “Welcome back, dear! Enjoyed your time away?”

 

“Most _ardently,_ ” said Anne. “But there’s no place like Green Gables.”

 

“I should think not,” Marilla agreed, having successfully detached Davy from coat. “I don’t think anywhere else has a _Davy_ in it.”

 

“Of course not! And just _look_ at you Davy!” Anne exclaimed, making a show of measuring his height against her as though he’d grown a full head in the short time she’d been away. As it was, he barely reached her shoulder, but the size of the grin he gave her made up for it. “You’ve gotten so tall! I was only gone a few weeks, and you’ve grown again? I don’t believe it!”

 

“Almost three centimetres!” Davy confirmed proudly. “One for each week you were gone! Now I’m as tall as Milty Boulter, so he can’t tease me for being small now ‘cause we’re the same size!”

 

“Is that so?” Anne replied, grinning back at him. “Well, I think you’ll outgrow him soon enough!”

 

“Really?” Impossibly, Davy’s smile widened further.

 

“I do! So has anything else of such magnitude happened? My phone charger died just about the second I got to Echo Lodge, so I don’t know what’s been going on! Where’s your sister?”

 

“Dora’s at Lily’s house. And I don’t know what ‘maggi-tude’ means,” Davy said honestly. “But …” his eyes narrowed as he tried to recall every tiny little thing that had happened over the last month, all suddenly clamouring for attention in his brain. “Well …” he said slowly, “Todd twisted his ankle playing soccer, and Steph told Ben who told James who told Luke that Wynne likes him, and now Steph and Wynne aren’t talking even though Luke likes Wynne anyway, which is kinda dumb because now Wynne and Luke know they like each other but Wynne said something about it being mean of her to tell her secret even if Luke did like her in the end, but — ”

 

Anne had a vivid and unexpected vision of Phil calling Gilbert Blythe to tell him that Anne did, in fact, return his feelings, and found that she understood Steph quite well. She tried to separate the other names in her brain and put a face to each child, but the names were already merging into a monosyllabic smear. Nevertheless, she kept up her smile as Davy rattled off another five or six names and a story to go with each. Behind him, Marilla rolled her eyes fondly as she filled the kettle.

 

“ — and then,” Davy continued, having only just gotten warmed up, “Gilbert Blythe had to go to hospital, so —”

 

He hesitated as Anne paled and her smile shrank sharply. Anne blinked once, and her stomach churned. From the corner of her eye, she saw Rachel at the table shake her head aggressively in Davy’s direction, and heard Marilla drop the kettle. She felt cold.

 

“Why’s he in hospital?” she asked, struggling to regain her smile and make the words come out nonchalant. “Did appendicitis catch up with him? He said it runs in his family and it was only a matter of time before it got him too.” At any other time, it would have been a reasonable suggestion, but Anne felt that it was a weak one. Gilbert had sent her that message. He had been in Bolivia.

 

Davy looked thoughtful. “Does append-itus make you throw up blood?”

 

“Davy,” Rachel warned.

 

The last hope of Gilbert having only a minor illness was snuffed out swiftly and mercilessly. Anne felt the last vestiges of her good mood drain from her body, leaving a cool and hollow sensation behind. “No,” she said quietly, but her voice seemed distant, as though it was no longer hers.

 

_i feel terrible_

 

“Oh, well then it’s not that,” Davy said reasonably. “I was having trouble with maths, so he said I could borrow his old books with all his work in them, but when I walked to the Blythe farm after school he didn’t answer the door so I just went in ‘cause the door was unlocked and he was on the kitchen floor and he wasn’t awake and he was grey and it looked like he’d thrown up blood, it was really gross, and then —”

 

At this, Marilla, looking old and worn and exhausted, seized Davy by his shoulders and marched him grimly from the kitchen. Anne stood there frozen, looking at where Davy had been, the remnants of her smile still shattered on her lips.

 

Rachel put a gentle hand on her shoulder, and turned Anne to look her in the eye. “Anne?”

 

“Is it true?” another person’s voice asked for her.

 

“Gilbert is very ill,” Rachel confirmed gravely, looking worriedly into Anne’s grey eyes. They were glazed, as though she had been hit over the head. “You didn’t hear anything about it? The — um — _incident_ at the Blythe farm only happened the day before yesterday.”

 

Anne’s brain helpfully calculated that Davy would have reached Gilbert’s by four. Gilbert’s last message was sent at three-ten. Was that the last thing Gilbert had done before he’d collapsed?

 

“My phone —” Anne started faintly. She pulled herself from Rachel and stood by the parlour door, staring out into the rain.

 

“Of course,” Rachel said quickly, as Anne’s breathing hitched. “Gilbert must have realised something was wrong, because an ambulance arrived not long after Davy found him. The paramedic said he called them about half an hour before.”

 

Anne nodded. She could barely find the energy to force more words from her throat. “What is it?”

 

Rachel grimaced. “They’re not sure what it _is_ ,” she said apologetically. “They think he must have caught something when he was doing that locum in South America. It’s very — ” here Rachel paused, as if wondering how to continue. “I won’t lie, Anne. It’s very serious.”

 

“Which hospital?” whispered Anne.

 

“He’s at the Prince County, which’ll — Anne, put down your coat. You can’t visit him.”

 

“Why not?” she asked stubbornly, pulling her arms through the sleeves.

 

Rachel took Anne by the arm again and tugged her gently away from the door. Anne didn’t exactly resist, but her muscles were tense under Rachel’s hand. Anne’s reaction was worse than she feared: instead of the panic she expected from such an open, sensitive girl, Anne was icily calm. Her tears were in no danger spilling from her eyes. And Rachel knew that this signified Anne was taking this far, far worse than she and Marilla had expected.

 

“It’s a very dangerous disease, they’re sure,” she explained. “A haemorrhagic fever. The doctor said he’s in the strictest biosafety ward. No one but immediate family is allowed to see him and —well, we all know that he doesn’t have any of that left.”

 

Anne kept quiet, looking pale and rather devastatingly serene. Rachel couldn’t stop herself from wrapping her arms around her.

 

“Anne, don’t look like that! While there’s life there’s hope, and I don’t know of any family with such a constitution as the Blythes.” Rachel knew, as well as Anne did, that a constitution hadn’t saved John Blythe. Inheriting it wouldn’t save Gilbert.

 

Anne gently put Rachel’s arms away from her, still so awfully, tragically calm, and made her way blindly towards the stairs. Marilla and Davy were nowhere to be seen, but she barely noticed. She didn’t pay attention to anything around her until her bedroom door was shut behind her and she was sitting on her bed, staring at her laptop.

 

Google insisted upon a high mortality rate. Wikipedia helpfully informed her that all haemorrhagic fevers could lead to shock and death, and narrowed the illness down. There had been rats and mice in the Bolivian village. Gilbert had sent a photo of one in the house he lived in.

 

And the Canadian Public Health Agency told her in detail every horrible, painful thing Gilbert was going through, and what would happen to him if treatment failed.

 

It was transparent what was happening: Gilbert was dying, and she was next going to see him at his funeral.

 

His Facebook profile showed no sign that anything was out of the ordinary. Three days ago he had posted an album of photos from the locum, pictures he’s taken with young kids and of small villages and of traditional foods. He was smiling in them all, as though he’d never been quite so happy in his life. There was a terrible selfie with the local doctor. A photo of a tiny girl missing two front teeth clinging to his back as if she was surgically attached. A series of pictures clearly taken when the village kids stole his camera. Playing soccer with a deflated ball, and still grinning away as though he wasn’t going to die within a week of the photo being taken.

 

Would his account be memorialised, or just deleted?

 

An unwelcome _ding_ stirred her from her misery, and she saw that a message had popped up on her screen.

 

 **_Diana Barry:_ ** _are you ok, anne?_

Anne felt a terrible pressure behind her eyes, but she couldn’t cry. She _wanted_ to. She always felt better after a good cry, but her eyes remained painfully dry.

 

 **_Anne Cordelia:_ ** _no. no i’m not. gilbert is dying_

**_Diana Barry:_ ** _we dont know that! its a good hospital, im sure hell be fine. promise_

**_Anne Cordelia:_ ** _i just —_

_i feel like he won’t be_

 

_i was going to ask him out_

 

_it’s a really stupid selfish thing to think about now but i cant stop thinking how unfair it all is_

_i was so mean to him when he asked me out and i **did** like him! and now that ive finally worked it out he;s going to die_

Anne watched a small bubble appear as Diana started typing a reply, and realised that she didn’t want to talk at all, even to Diana. She wanted to be completely and utterly alone. She exited Facebook and hit shuffle in her music library and stared out the window.

 

It took only one song, and painfully relevant lyrics to make her put her now-closed laptop on the floor, switch off her feebly-charging phone, and lay back on her bed, blankets rising around her weight like a breath.

 

_In the wind I’d taste the dreams of distant lives._

She wondered how different things would have been if she hadn’t rejected Gilbert. Maybe he wouldn’t have gone to Bolivia. Maybe he’d have gone somewhere else. Maybe he’d have gone there anyway, but they’d at least have written letters like they would have as though they’d been born a hundred years earlier. Maybe she’d have a right to be there at the hospital with him right now.

 

It was cold, but she couldn’t bring herself to pull the blankets over her. So she just lay there, watching the rain, and praying.

 

* * *

 

 

“Are you sure you can’t tell me _anything_?” Anne asked the receptionist desperately. Her fist was clenched against her side, knuckles white.

 

The woman looked at her with a very understanding, very sympathetic, and very apologetic expression. Anne wanted to shake her.

 

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I can’t bring up a patient’s file for _anyone_ but immediate family, and it sounds as though your friend is in one of our most isolated wards. I’m afraid as much as I’d like to, I really can’t make an exception.”

 

The phone on the desk shrieked.

 

Anne nodded, mouth feeling dry. She wondered to how many other people the receptionist had to say the same. “Thanks anyway,” she managed, starting to turn away.

 

The receptionist nodded back and reached for the phone, but her face suddenly turned thoughtful, as if considering something. Then:

 

“I can, however, tell you that that young nurse works in the ward you seem to be interested in.” Then she smiled, and picked up the phone.

 

Anne blinked, and spun on her heel. A nurse was just passing her, deeply buried in a report and she realised, with another start, that she recognised him. It took a few moments for her mouth to do anything except open and close uselessly like a dying fish, but before the nurse turned the corner —

 

“Pacifique!”

 

Pacifique Buote blinked and looked up from the report. It took him a few seconds to locate the source of his name, but his eyes eventually settled on Anne.

 

“Anne?”

 

“Yes. From Avonlea. It’s me. Hi,” Anne said breathlessly, feeling like she’d been electrocuted. If Pacifique worked in that ward and Gilbert … Pacifique would know what there was to be known. She steeled herself, and charged ahead. “I was wondering if you know how Gilbert Blythe is.”

 

Pacifique’s face took on a very guarded look Anne recognised from the receptionist. “Anne, I’m sorry but I can’t tell you how Gilbert is —”

 

Anne opened her mouth to plead, to _beg,_ but Pacifique interrupted her.

 

“But as a friend, I _can_ tell you,” he said, sounding just like the receptionist as though they trained at the same ‘breaking-patient-confidentiality’ school, “how happy I am that one of my sickest patients is recovering. I can’t tell you who they are, but I’m sure you’re happy on their behalf.” His smile was sly.

 

Anne felt her heart swell to three times its size.

 

“Now excuse me Anne, but I have to rush off.”

 

“Wait! Can you tell your patient how glad I am to hear they’re getting better? And if you can —”

 

She pulled out the gift from her bag and handed it to him, hope written all over her face.

 

Pacifique placed the colourful present under his clipboard, and his smile was no longer sly, just kind. “Count on it.”

 

* * *

 

 

“I can’t wait to get out of here,” Gilbert told Phil as she arranged the four boxes of chocolate she’d brought on the plastic chest of drawers. “I mean, I’d heard about how great hospital pudding was meant to be, but I won’t lie. It’s disgusting. I miss real food, even if it i _s_ quinoa.”

 

“And here I was, going to go and find you some extra pudding,” Phil said teasingly, admiring her classy chocolate-arrangement with an approving nod. “You millennials. So ungrateful.”

 

“It’s not my fault I can’t afford quinoa! I can’t even afford a house; I spent all my money on avocado toast.”

 

“I wouldn’t expect anything _less_ from you Gilbert Blythe. So. You miss real food. Anything else you miss? Your phone? A charger? Anne Shirley-Cuthbert?”

 

Gilbert’s face grew warm. Not from embarrassment, but just the thought of Anne.

 

“Ha! I knew you still liked her.”

 

“Well, I can’t exactly _stop_. And all of the above. Though,” he said, eyeing Phil’s handbag as she began to purposefully rummage through it, “I guess you can only fit two of those things in that bag. And I’m guessing one of those things is Anne. _Lordy_ , Phil. Do you _really_ need all that space? Really?”

 

“How _dare_ you speak to my bag like that,” said Phil, pulling Gilbert’s phone and her spare charger from her bag. “Have you forgotten what this purse has done for you?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You ungrateful shit, Gilbert Blythe. Remember the Ibuprofen when you smashed your head into that sign? Smuggling candy into the cinema? Or was all that nothing to you?” Phil demanded teasingly, withholding his phone.

 

“I can’t remember. I did hit my head _really_ hard.”

 

“I’ll hit you again. What’s that called? Cognitive recalibration?”

 

“Yeah, and please don’t.”

 

“Then apologise to the bag.”

 

“I will not. Give me my phone.”

 

“Not until I have a sincere apology, and a promise to never again insult me as you have done.”

 

Gilbert frowned. “This is between me and the purse, not you. Don’t make this all about you.” He fixed his eyes on the over-sized purse. “I am _sorry_ ,” he dramatically, “that your owner is trying to leech this heartfelt apology from you. You deserve so much better.”

 

“Acceptable,” Phil admitted reluctantly, and threw his phone at him. “Anne’ll be here after lunch. I think she’s desperately trying to find you a present, and — ”

 

Gilbert’s eyes darted towards the innocent gift bag Pacifique had presented him ‘with compliments of Anne’. He doubted she was trying to find him a gift. What he’d received already had been a number of most welcome unhealthy foods he’d eaten as quickly as the nurses would let him and — by far the gift he was most excited to find — a printed copy of the first three chapters of her manuscript. He’d begged to read it for months and months, even before he’d ruined everything, and now he had nearly fifty pages of Anne’s writing! Gilbert had just about memorized the chapters in their entirety, and was very hopeful he’d get to read another few chapters; Anne was considering letting him, if the handwritten note on the last page was anything to go by:

 

_If I’m happy with your critique, I may let you read more. _

_Anne xxx_

 

“ — of course she’s got to make sure it’s perfect,” Phil continued, and Gilbert realized with a jolt that he’d been in a daze for the past few seconds, “and then she’ll probably be a little bit late ’cause she’s trying to come to terms with her latest epiphany, so — ”

 

“Latest epiphany?” Gilbert asked, dragging his eyes from Anne’s gift, “You mean that her writer’s block is gone?”

 

“Nah, when I asked her a few weeks ago she said she couldn’t get anything past the second chapter to sound any good. I don’t know when she’ll get back to writing.”

 

Gilbert didn’t reply to this, his mind racing. Anne hadn’t even told Phil that she’d been writing? And yet she’d given him three chapters of her novel! Something she was so secretive above that she’d never let anyone read a word until she was one hundred percent happy with it herself!

 

And she’d just … _given it to him._

 

“But yeah, I’d agree that _a_ block _is_ gone,” Phil said evasively. “You should check your phone.”

 

The expression on Phil’s face was one he recognised: specifically, the one she wore sixty seconds she blurted something out. He watched her suspiciously for a moment, before turning to his phone. Phil had been thoughtful enough to charge it, probably in the car on the way there, and an enormous number of messages sprang up when he turned it on. He found, to his utmost pleasure, that the notification centre informed him of several message from Anne. He felt his face grow warmer, and a smile start creeping across it as he read through them.

 

 **_carrots:_ ** _and i missed you too_

It didn’t mean anything. Anne had made her feelings very clear, and he wasn’t going to bring it up again. But platonic or otherwise, it made him feel about ten times better than he had a minute ago.

 

He looked up to see Phil staring at him, a crease between her eyebrows. Twenty seconds.

 

“What.”

 

“Nothing! Well … anything from Anne?”

 

“Yeah. A few messages.”

 

“Get anything … interesting?”

 

Gilbert looked back down, getting steadily more suspicious. “Yeah, she said she’s seen the light and is becoming a scientologist. She’s wondering if I’ll throw out my Menorah and join her to worship our alien overlords.”

 

“I’m serious, Gilbert!” Her expression growing steadily more constipated. “Anything? At all?”

 

Gilbert narrowed his eyes. “Phil, I _swear_ if you’ve sent me nudes from her phone I’ll never speak to you again.”

 

Phil cackled. “ _No_. But I’d hoped she’d have said something about her epiphany.”

 

He rolled his eyes, and reached for a glass of water.

 

“… You’re not curious?”

 

“I figure Anne’ll tell me if she wants to tell me.” He didn’t mention how badly he wanted to know what had happened. _Something_ had happened, and it wasn’t that Anne was writing again!

 

“Not even a little bit?” Phil wheedled.

 

Gilbert assumed his most nonchalant expression, and busied himself taking a sip of water.

 

Phil looked furious. She opened her mouth and —

 

“Anne’s finally realised the mad sexual tension between you two and is gonna ask you out.”

 

Gilbert choked, and water spilled all over himself and the starchy hospital sheets.

 

“ _What?_ ” he spluttered, coughing and dragging a hand over his sopping face.

 

“Ah, so _now_ you’re curious?”

 

“ _Phil!_ ”

 

“Alright! It’s true, anyway. She was going to ask you when you got back from Bolivia, but she found out you were sick, confessed to Diana, and then signed out of Facebook _and_ turned off her phone so no one could talk to her!” Satisfied that Gilbert now knew, she opened one of the chocolate boxes and perused its contents thoughtfully. “She’s been so upset. Lots of crying and eating, and she hasn’t been speaking to people either. The night before we found out you were getting better she drove to the hospital and spent the night in her car.”

 

Gilbert fought down the smile he could feel threatening to overtake his face and the warmth spreading in his chest. “Should — should you be telling me this?” he managed to say. His voice sounded as thought it was coming from very far away.

 

“I don’t see why not,” Phil replied. “It concerns you both.”

 

“But … that’s really private,” he argued, ignoring the fact that he felt light-headed with joy. “What if —”

 

“Look, Anne never explicitly said ‘don’t tell Gilbert!’” she interrupted. “You can be as morally opposed to this as much as you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that _now you know._ And what are you going to do about it now?”

 

Gilbert glared at her, but it fell flat. Phil stared back with Anne-level stubbornness. Her stony expression was marred only by her chewing, and her vague aura of supreme satisfaction.

 

“Also,” she added as an afterthought, picking out another chocolate, “don’t eat the round ones. They’re disgusting.”

 

* * *

 

 

It had been _weeks_ since Gilbert had left hospital, and he’d been at Green Gables _innumerable_ times, and Anne _innumerable_ times to the Blythe farm and still, _still,_ Diana was disappointed by the unchanging word _single_ beneath their relationship statuses. Phil had called frequently, and they had delightedly concocted elaborate and unlikely schemes to change that little problem, but …

 

It was time, she decided during one pleasant date with Fred, to stage an intervention. She did not regret it.

 

The intervention was innocently disguised as a movie night, completely unidentifiable as an attempt to force a spontaneous, hard-core make-out session that would hopefully ease some of the sexual tension that everyone — _including_ Anne and Gilbert — felt so strongly it was a real shock that no one had yet exploded. It had been bad enough when Gilbert was the giving end of a one-sided (or so they thought) crush, but now that _Anne_ knew she liked him back … and there had been the whole lethal illness incident to heighten tension further …

 

Well. Diana wasn’t surprised to find mutual friends of Anne from university were equally frustrated. It was so _clear._ Anne Shirley-Cuthbert, freshly in love and too proud and stubborn to admit it to Gilbert Blythe who was, of course, still quietly, hopelessly, and unmistakably in love with her.

 

So far, the event seemed to be progressing as planned. About half the Avonlea crew, consisting of herself, Fred, Moody, and the victims themselves were meeting at Gilbert’s place (volunteered unwittingly by the man himself) to watch Anne’s large collection of obscure animated films. To start the evening before he even arrived, Moody had discovered — tragically — that he actually had a shift at work, and called ahead to apologise for his absence.

 

To avoid suspicion, Diana and Fred stayed for the first movie. They were twenty minutes into _The Secret of Kells_ , one of Diana’s personal favourites, when Minnie May called.

 

“Minnie?” Diana closed the door between the living room and the kitchen.

 

“ _Diana,”_ ‘Minnie’ said in Phil’s voice. “ _What’s the verdict?_ ”

 

“Well, sadly Moody didn’t make it. He had a shift at work or something.”

 

“ _Were they suspicious?_ ”

 

“No, I think it was fine.”

 

“ _Good. Let’s continue with phase two.”_

Diana returned to the living-room forty seconds later with her best apologetic expression. “Guys,” she started, and all their faces turned to her.

 

Gilbert was still very pale and a little weak still, but they had still had to threaten him into sitting down and accepting the mound of blankets they threw over him. He looked very small under the huge pile of blankets and she noted, to her supreme satisfaction, that he was sharing the pile with Anne, and leaning against her besides.

 

“You alright, Diana?”

 

“I double-booked myself. I promised I would help Minnie study tonight and — ” she shrugged helplessly.

 

“Genius,” said Gilbert.

 

“Shut up.”

 

“What’s her first exam?”

 

“English.” Diana said the first subject that came to mind. “But I’m sorry, I’ll have to leave.”

 

“Do you need a lift?” Gilbert asked, and she internally screamed as he started trying to extract himself from Anne and the blankets.

 

“It’s alright,” Fred interrupted, standing hastily and pushing Gilbert back down. “I’ll take her.”

 

“You sure —”

 

“Yes.”

 

A crease developed between Gilbert’s eyebrows. “Well … take some food, anyway. We’ve got heaps. Minnie likes Malteasers, yeah?”

 

It was true, the tiny coffee table was groaning under the immense number of dishes Gilbert had received from neighbours as ‘get-well’ presents, as well as all the crap Fred had brought.

 

“Take the Malteasers and you die,” Anne swore, her arm around Gilbert.

 

“I won’t,” Diana promised.

 

She took the Malteasers. She’d spent enough energy trying to set them up: whether it worked or failed, she’d earned them.

 

* * *

 

 

It was the very second Diana suddenly remembered she was going to help Minnie and Fred all-to-eagerly volunteered to drive her that Anne realized something was going on. And it wasn’t too difficult to guess what.

 

This had Phil’s grubby little hands _all over it._

 

“Well,” she said as the headlights of Fred’s car faded, and the only light coming through the window was the moon. “That was —”

 

“Suspicious,” Gilbert finished. He shifted slightly, and Anne was hyperaware that he was looking at her.

 

She’d sworn to herself that she’d tell Gilbert how she felt when she visited him in the hospital, but sitting there in the sanitised privacy, she found that she simply couldn’t. She _wanted_ to tell him. Rip it off like a bandage: if he didn’t love her anymore she’d know, and if he did then they could be happy. The blank impersonality of the white sheets and dull walls had pushed the words back down her throat. The things she’d wished to say, things she’d been so _sure_ she would say refused to emerge from her lips.

 

When he’s out, she told herself. Then, for _sure._

 

She and Gilbert _had_ spent a lot of time together since he’d been discharged from hospital, but once again she couldn’t summon up the courage to tell him. Anne was furious with herself. _Gilbert_ had been brave enough to tell her, and had stayed her friend even after she rejected him. What did she have to fear? A rejection? She could handle that. Gilbert had made it very clear that whatever happened, he wanted to be her friend. She agreed.

 

But the shadow of Christine Stuart’s existence loomed over her like a nightmare. When he was dying, she’d been so _so_ sure that he felt the same way! Had Christine and Gilbert broken up? Were they still together? There was a decent chance that Gilbert really _had_ managed to get over her and was happy with Christine! Did she have any _right_ to say her feelings?

 

Now that he was well, she’d completely chickened out. Chickened out so _obviously_ that her friends were trying to set them up!

 

Gilbert turned back to the film after the long, loaded pause. Anne couldn’t help a soft sigh, though whether it was one of relief or disappointment, she wasn’t sure. She told herself sternly to not get her hopes up, and began watching with movie with forced interest, her mind wandering to focus on his arm around her.

 

* * *

 

 

Brendan was just stealing the eye of Crom Cruach when Gilbert turned to her again unexpectedly, and said:

 

“Do you want to go for a walk?”

 

Anne blinked, and looked back. His eyes looked very bright in his pale face.

 

“Are you sure you’re up to it? I don’t want you fainting; I’m not dragging your dumb ass back to the house.”

 

“Um, what happened to ‘ride or die’? Our pinky promise to be friends forever, pigtail incident notwithstanding? Did that mean nothing to you?”

 

“No. I _lied_.” She laughed maniacally.

 

Gilbert clutched at his heart. “Wow. I — you need to give me a minute to sob uncontrollably. I can’t believe you’d break a _pinky_ promise. I know for a _fact_ you’ve never broken such a serious promise with Di.”

 

“A _fact?_ ”

 

“Gut feeling,” he corrected. “You’d happily abandon me out there in the snow … with the wolves … and Billy Andrews lurking somewhere in the woods to verbally and/or physically abuse innocent passers-by … Point is, it’s a nice night, and I’ve only left the house to go to _yours._ I’m so tired of being cooped up in here. It’s killing me.”

  
Anne glared at him.

 

“Sorry. Too soon?”

 

“Too soon,” she agreed. “But yeah, I think that’s a great idea.”

 

She ended up borrowing an old green coat he’d had even before they first met, and they stepped out into the night air. It was still early in spring, and there was residual snow settled across the ground in long fingers of frost. It crunched satisfyingly beneath their feet as they walked to the gate, and the road beyond.

 

They walked in silence, but not an awkward one. It was _companionable,_ and the night was too peaceful to spoil with words. With others, Anne may have felt uncomfortable, as though she had to speak to make the time spent worthwhile. But Gilbert was different. It was _always_ different with Gilbert. It was nice simply to spend that time watching the stars wheeling across the sky, admiring the moonbeams dappling the trees, and maybe occasionally pointing out a shooting star.

 

Anne stole more glances at him when she was sure he didn’t notice. His face had been very thin when he had first been discharged; by now he had managed to put on a bit of weight and was looking more like his old self. But his jaw was no longer as soft as it had once been. It was as if the fever had tried to strip him ruthlessly of his last vestiges of boyhood, leaving behind his smile, and the way his eyes crinkled up when he did so, and the faintest trace of freckles across his nose.

 

In between these glances, Gilbert stole his own of Anne. It was too dark to see the shade of her hair, or how his dark green coat really looked against her complexion, but the iris-like fragility of her skin was even more breath-taking in the moonlight. Even in that oversized coat and manky old beanie, he couldn’t think of a time when she’d looked lovelier.

 

“There’s one,” Anne said later, when they had walked all the way to Hester Gray’s memorial garden and were sitting comfortably together on the little bench just inside the fence-line. “I read that shooting stars are supposed to grant your unfulfilled dreams and wishes when you see them. I hope it’s true. It’s very romantic.”

 

“Do you have any unfulfilled dreams?” Gilbert asked quietly.

 

There was something in his tone that reminded her distinctly of that evening in the orchard, but this time she felt hopeful, not petrified. Her heart thudded in her chest. But she answered as casually as she could manage, snuggling down deeper into the red coat. It smelled like him, and it calmed her down.

 

“Well _duh,_ Gil!” She winced, worried her words were misplaced in the gravity of the moment, but Gilbert smiled. “Everybody has. What would be the point of living if there weren’t anything to aspire to, to dream about? If we had everything, there would be nothing left to want.” She felt her face going red. “I wonder what it would be like up there, in the sky? To look back on the Earth, and see how small it is in the universe. But I guess there would be something wonderful about it, knowing that there’s so much more left to learn and discover. A whole new Odyssey out there!”

 

Gilbert privately agreed, but was not going to allow himself to be side-tracked.

 

“I have a dream too,” he said, thinking about the star Anne had pointed out only a minute before. “It’s really simple, but kind of dumb, really. But I’ve had it for so long that it’s been a constant in my life, even when I was sure it’d never come true.”

 

Anne felt Gilbert’s gaze fall on her, and her heart leapt up into her throat. If this was what she _hoped —_

“I didn’t even _realise_ it was a dream,” he continued. “I must have just taken it for granted, assumed that it would happen. I was sure I’d spend my life with the people I love the most. Y’know, to do stupid stuff with when drunk, and go to weddings, grow old with … And I just assumed I’d die with those people, too.”

 

He let out a shaky sigh. The breath made a cloud of white mist that dissipated in the wintry air.

 

“I was — I was so _sure_ I was going to die. After I’d sent you that last message and called an ambulance, there was the blood and my knees just stopped working and I thought that was it.” His eyes were very distant. “I only woke up once. Before they told me I’d be fine. I could see all these doctors and nurses busy working on me, and they were all so serious and _worried._ And I was angry at them ‘cause I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to die _alone_ like my father did. And all that was really going through my head was _you._ ”

 

She couldn’t speak, she could barely breathe. She reached out and took his hand between both of hers and squeezed it. It pulled him from his daze and he looked back at her, a new kind of urgency and seriousness in his eyes.

 

“Anne, you’re my best friend, and I love you. _In_ love with you, I mean, still. But if you still don’t feel the same way, I _swear_ you’ll never hear about this from me again. I wasn’t planning on bringing this up again, but — but someone told me that you changed your mind, and I had to check.”

 

His hand twitched, as though he expected her to release it. She held on tighter. She remembered Davy’s story about that girl and boy in his class, and wondered why Steph had been so upset. She couldn’t bring herself to be even slightly mad.

 

“It was Phil, wasn’t it?” Anne said. “The little traitor. Can’t count on her to keep secrets.” And she looked up into his eyes with a look that told him all he needed to know.


	2. Deleted Scene 1 or, 'scrapes on my arms and a mouthful of hell'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gilbert wakes up exhausted, ill, and with the unmistakeable feeling that something is very, very wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey hey! The first deleted scene has finally been finished. As you can probably guess the second you start reading, this is NOT set after the main story but, rather, before. More are coming just! Very slowly! Thanks for the support and your patience, guys!

A violently loud _crack_ as the wind blew a branch into the window was what woke Gilbert Blythe and, with a sneaking, morbid sense of expectance, he noted that the turn he’d hoped for had not crept over him in the night. It was the sinking feeling in his stomach that told him he couldn’t blame this on chronic jetlag or the lingering effects of those miskicked soccer balls to the belly, not for a long shot. The headache that had hung over him for the last week grasped his attention with a particularly painful pulse to the temple that forced Gilbert to close his eyes and draw in a very long, very slow breath.

 

He had been so sure that the general feeling of slight illness plaguing him for the last week was just his body riotously complaining about having to adapt back to the Canadian environment, but he wasn’t so sure now. His body had never been so reluctant when returning from Australia and South Asia, and part of his brain – the part that had been so focused the last few months on the health of Inti Condori’s villagers – gave him a cold verdict.

 

 _Malaise,_ it informed him helpfully, _is a general feeling of discomfort or unease. A common symptom of illness._

Fantastic.

 

His eyes flickered open again almost hesitantly, as though they weren’t quite sure whether or not to risk it. He caught a glimpse of the wood grains of the ceiling crawling about and his father watching serenely from the wheelchair in the corner before the wintry light streaming through the windows made him squeeze them tightly shut.

 

 _Step one,_ he ordered himself. _Describe symptoms._

Where could he start? Where _should_ he start? When his father started having those dizzy spells, they’d assumed low blood pressure and had started carrying around bags of emergency jellybeans. Maybe he should start carrying jellybeans again. Except the red ones really were _horrifically_ overrated. He almost preferred the black ones; they should start making bags with all colours _but_ black and red, maybe with extra oranges ones ‘cause they really _were –_

It took him almost thirty seconds to realise his mind had drifted off again, his brain too hot and uncomfortable and a little too large for his skull. It was so difficult to think.

 

It scared him.

 

“You’re a doctor, Blythe,” he said aloud, his throat rebelling and trying to cram the words back down his oesophagus. It was quiet and faltering, and took far more effort than it should. “Act like one.”

 

_Symptom one: decreased mental capabilities._

That could be a symptom of _anything,_ ranging from something deadly serious to just plain old fatigue. That wasn’t enough to make a diagnosis. Not nearly enough.

 

A few more nasty minutes passed by with his mind a blank, worriedly plucking at a blanket with his cold hands, before the next symptom occurred.

 

“Fever,” he said aloud. It was freezing, absolutely freezing, but now that the stubborn little word had come to mind, he could detect a thin sheen of sweat coating his face. The room felt cold and humid, a contradictory combination that made his lungs burn and struggle with every breath.

 

_This is bad. This is very, very bad._

A hot spike of pain stabbed through his skull.

 

“Headache.” He barely managed to choke out the word, screwing his eyes tightly shut and fisting his hands in the bed sheets.

 

Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. The symptoms of everything ever. Ignore the unique symptoms! Don’t think of anything that might help! Don’t trouble yourself, Blythe! It’s not as though you’re a literal, _actual_ doctor who apparently _can’t diagnose himself!_

 

His head was splitting so badly he barely felt something cool trickle over his lip, but he couldn’t miss the taste. Salty. Tangy. Nothing good. His heart sank deeper into his stomach.

 

It took colossal effort to raise his hand to his face; so much, in fact, he nearly gave up before he reached his chin.

 

“Muscle fatigue,” he muttered tonelessly. He brushed his fingers over his lip and risked opening his eyes. A flash of red caught his eye, and he felt dizzier. “Haemord – haerom – nosebleed.” Now his tongue wasn’t behaving itself. It was too big for his mouth. Things were looking worse and worse with every second that passed by.

 

He must have caught something in Bolivia. He’d had barely any physical contact with anyone since he got back. _Bolivia. Bolivia Bolivia Bolivia, what kind of diseases did they have?_ He’d treated some standard cold and flu. Minor breaks, grazes, cuts. A few concussions.

 

Typhoid.

 

Gilbert’s ribs squeezed painfully, crushing his lungs.

 

 _Unconfirmed,_ he reminded himself dizzily. _It’s not confirmed._

His heart was unconvinced, and thrashed in his chest.

 

“Symptoms of typhoid,” he managed aloud, the words coming out stumbling and hesitant, as though it weren’t spoken in his first language. “Headache. Fatigue. Abdomal – abdominalal – ” he gave up. “Swelling. Bradca – bradycardia.” These were still to broad; too broad to make a proper diagnosis. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t think _why couldn’t he think –_

“Rose spots,” his mouth said without consulting his brain.

 

“That’s very serious, Gil,” his father said, serenely watching from his wheelchair. There was something wrong about this image, but Gilbert was too freezing and overheated and tired and agitated and dizzy to put the effort in to work out just what. He looked at his father through half-closed eyes, eyelashes obscuring his vision.

 

“I know,” he tried to reply. It was an unintelligible murmur, but his father nodded as though he understood Gilbert’s words perfectly.

 

“Do you _have_ rose spots?” his father asked with all the wisdom of Gilbert’s immunology professor. How could he know what they were? John Blythe had been a farmer when he was born, a compulsive traveller as a man and a farmer once more by the time he died. He couldn’t know anything about medicine.

 

Gilbert pried his shirt away. It took several goes, as his left hand was shaking too badly to keep the material from sticking back down to his clammy chest. He ran his fingerprints over his chest and found, with a seeping feeling of resignation and hopelessness, a series of raised, bruise-like bumps.

 

“Yeah.”

 

His father looked at him with an alien expression of cool indifference. And he realised what was wrong.

 

“Delirium,” he managed, “is also a symptom.” He needed to call an ambulance. He needed his phone. But where was it? What had he done with it?

 

“It is,” John agreed. “But _knowing_ ... now, that hasn't changed anything, has it?”


	3. Deleted Scene 2 or, 'speak your mind, dig your grave'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anne has difficulty psyching herself up to confess her feelings to Gilbert at the hospital. 
> 
> Hint: she doesn't confess.
> 
> Yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SO SORRY LMAOOO I TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT ALL THE EXTRA STUFF I'D WRITTEN. The release of the season 2 _Anne With An E_ finally jumpstarted that memory and got me digging in my old files. lmao if any of you actually care about this anymore after - *checks calendar* - ... eight months. Yikes™

The silence of Anne’s journey to the hospital was blasted away with horrific suddenness by a very distinct ringtone. She flinched, her foot slipped off the clutch, and the halting _lurch_ as the car screamed and stalled was almost more terrifying than the shrill, ear-piercing tones of a particular segment of the recorder version of _My Heart Will Go On._

Anne tensed, waiting for a following vehicle to smash into her and get her into the hospital a lot quicker than if she simply drove, but it was a very quiet morning and the only vehicle behind her – some two hundred metres back – had a large red learner’s plate in the window. Anne breathed a sigh of relief – if there _had_ been a honking, impatient pile-up behind her as she missed the green light, she felt sure she’d have done something stupider than stalling the car … maybe driving into the cyclist ahead of her, or forgetting to turn the car on.

 

As it happened, she didn’t hit the cyclist in front, nor did the intricacies of turning the key in the ignition escape her. What _did_ happen was that she limped the groaning car to the side of the road and snatched up her phone before it had time to play the seventh reiteration of the obnoxious ringtone.

 

“Phil, I was _driving,”_ Anne complained by way of a greeting, more crabby than she had right to be. But doubt and anxiety and fear were bubbling up inside her, and Phil was the first person at whom the explosive nature of Anne’s emotions would target that day.

 

“ _And you didn’t_ have _to answer your phone,_ ” Phil retorted. “ _And yet here we are. When are you arriving?”_

Anne stared out the windscreen. The hospital, sitting there crisp and white and taunting, was at most five minutes away. Those five minutes would feel like ten years, she was sure. Ten years of hideous anticipation.

 

“Sooner if you hadn’t called me,” Anne snapped.

 

Phil let out a long, amused whistle. “ _Wow! You’re re-e-eally nervous about this, eh?”_

“No,” she replied, too quickly.

 

“ _Oh Anne. You’re a bad liar.”_

A pang of guilt hit Anne in the chest, hard. Look at her now. Letting her worry ruin her interactions with friends! At least Phil was canny enough to understand just _why_ Anne was being so abrupt and difficult, but regret squeezed Anne’s lungs and heart.

 

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

 

“ _You are,”_ Phil agreed cheerfully.

 

“I am.” Anne hesitated, biting her lip, and then plunged into what she was thinking. “I don’t know how I should act, Phil! I don’t know what to say! Should I let my emotions run me? Or would that look too hysterical and desperate? But then if I act really cool, it’ll seem like I don’t give even half a shit about him! I don’t! Know! What to do, Phil!”

 

Phil took the brunt of Anne’s worry in silence, and waited patiently for her to finish her rant. Anne opened her mouth to take in a breath, cheeks burning and her chest swelling, and —

 

“ _I’ll tell you exactly what you’re going to do,”_ Phil said in a no-nonsense tone, “ _you’re going to not plan anything. You’re just gonna go straight in there and act how you would if it was any other friend, not just your best friend_.”

 

“But — Diana’s my best friend. I can’t have two!”

 

“ _You’re allowed more than one best friend! You enormous baby. And don’t change the subject. Would you sit in the foyer worrying what you’d say if it was me in there?”_

“No.” Anne’s eyes pricked with tears of frustration.

 

“ _What would you do?”_

“I’d go right in there and tell you just how worried I’d been and how glad I was to see you.”

 

“ _Damn right. And you wouldn’t worry about how I’d react or anything. So that’s exactly what you’re gonna do. Go in there and tell him just that. Plus you’ll tell him just how much you’re looking forward to him being discharged. What else?”_

 

“I’m going to tell him how I feel about him.”

 

“ _Good, but not specific enough. Details. I want everything. Go._ ”

 

“I’m going to tell him he’s my best friend,” Anne recited, “that I missed him terribly while he was away, and even worse when he was sick. And I’ll tell him how much I love him.”

 

She could feel Phil’s eyes narrow through the phone.

 

“I’ll tell him I’m _in_ love with him,” she corrected. Anne paused for a moment, and then: “’In love’ is a very _strong_ way of putting it, isn’t it? Maybe I should just say that I’d like to go out with him.”

 

“Strong, maybe,” Phil interjected, “but in this case it’s incredibly true.”

 

Anne stared at the empty road. She remembered Gilbert’s halting, nervous proposal. She remembered her first words after: _You’ve ruined everything!_ And she remembered his face going white and that little twitch in his jaw she’d seen before when he was trying not to cry at his father’s funeral.

 

It had been months before they could meet each other’s eyes, and a little longer again before some kind of semblance to their old comradeship had returned. But it was hesitant and more awkward than it had ever been, and Gilbert had shortly after disappeared to Bolivia and Anne had wondered, more than once, if they would _ever_ get back to where they used to be.

 

She couldn’t live with going through that again.

 

“I can’t do this,” she said faintly.

 

“ _You’d better_ ,” Phil said frankly, “ _for Gilbert’s sake, if not your own. You have any idea how excited he is to see you? The first thing he did when he got back from Bolivia was ask me if I knew when you were getting back to Avonlea. That boy has it bad, Shirley. He’ll be really disappointed if you cancel_.”

 

Anne was vaguely aware that Phil was absolutely manipulating her, and was appropriately mad that it was working very well.

 

“I’ll do it,” she declared. “Psych me up.”

 

“ _Attagirl."_

**Author's Note:**

> i have a lot of deleted chunks that i got rid of because they were all set after these stupid kids finally get together, and i though they kinda ruined the conclusion a bit. so. idk it seems a waste to just leave em alone, so if anyone wants to read em i might add another chapter of deleted scenes lol
> 
> also: yes, anne and gilbert have stupid little nicknames for each other on messenger. this is a given, guys.


End file.
